With fraud on the rise credit card networks have realized that customer signatures are simply not a reliable way to authenticate someones identity and some of the countrys largest retailers agree According to The New York Times four of the largest credit card networks American Express Discover Mastercard and Visa will no longer require signatures to complete transactions In addition Target has made the decision to eliminate the need for signatures this month while Walmart has already stopped recording them on most transactions according to a company spokesman The plan is to soon get rid of them completely Each card network is setting its own set of rules regarding signatures While American Express is getting rid of the requirement on all of its cards globally Mastercard is dropping it only in the United States and Canada Discover will no longer require signatures in the US and Canada as well as Mexico and the Caribbean And Visa is making signatures optional in North America but only for retailers with payment systems that read chip cards The signature has really outrun its useful life said Linda Kirkpatrick Mastercards head of business development in the United States In fact credit card networks have been working towards getting rid of signatures for years with most eliminating the need for one on transactions below a certain amount usually 25 or 50 going back as far as 2010 However the networks allowed retailers to maintain their own policies while also discouraging smaller merchants from getting rid of signatures entirely For its part Mastercard also wanted to wait until cards embedded with chip cards became commonplace before completely making a switch But now the networks are sending a clear signal to retailers that signatures are obsolete I think theyre done said Mark Horwedel the chief executive of the Merchant Advisory Group a trade group that represents large American retailers You Might Also Like Card Signature card transaction credit card News payment method POS Target walmart Whats Hot